THE NEW YORKER, MAY 9, 2016
51
The Riese complex of tunnels and chambers covers almost two hundred thousand square metres, an area forty times as large
as the White House. Treasure hunters have found Nazi artifacts, including this standard, in the area.
size of the tunnels being dug. By count-
ing the barracks, Boczek gauged the
number of Kommandos---units of slave
laborers---staying at the camp. These
workers fell into two basic categories,
based on their quality and their strength.
"The first kind were people taken from
the streets, like Jews, Poles, Dutchmen,
French, and Belgians," he said. "They
lived just a short time here in these
mountains, approximately four weeks.
The most hardworking people were
Russian prisoners of war; they lived
longer than the other guys, about six
to seven weeks." On average, Boczek
estimated, one forty-person Kommando
unit was able to dig thirteen linear feet
of tunnel---eleven feet high and ten
feet wide---every twelve hours. Such
calculations helped him to determine
the size of the tunnels that he hoped
to locate and explore.
Once Boczek had identified the site
of a good-sized camp, he began ana-
lyzing old maps. Typically, he com-
pared maps from before and after the
war, looking for places where new
streams appeared. "So where did they
come from?" Boczek said, with a pro-
fessorial air. "Every stream comes from
a drift." A drift is a horizontal passage-
way in the earth from which water can
emerge. If the entrance of a tunnel was
sealed o with boulders, water might
emerge from it, forming a stream.These
were Boczek's markers, and he used
them each spring when he set out to
find new tunnels.
Digging for treasure legally can be
cumbersome. First, you need the land-
owner's permission.Then you must re-
port everything you find to the author-
ities---and, under Polish property law,
you may keep only ten per cent of that.
Digging is also costly, sometimes in-
volving earthmoving equipment and
crews of men with shovels. What's
more, many of the treasure hunters I
met didn't seem to trust anyone, even
one another.Tomasz Jurek complained
that a member of his own club had
surreptitiously tried to chisel a narrow
passageway, from his own basement,
into a secret facility ostensibly built by
the Nazis. "He was working on this
project without notifying the group,"
Jurek said. He then assured me that
the transgressor was no longer part of
the club.
Jurek's biggest concern, and Boczek's,
was being followed. Both worried that
they were being watched by a gang
of clandestine agents known as "the
guards." Other treasure hunters voiced
similar concerns. Piotr Koper, the man
who claimed to have found the train
at the th Kilometre, said that he
feared for the safety of his family.
There is an extensive mythology
around the guards. By most accounts,
they are a global network of former
Nazis, similar to the legendary
unit. was allegedly founded
at the end of the war in order to
help former S.S. members avoid cap-
ture and escape to countries like Ar-
gentina and Brazil. Historians doubt
whether units ever existed.
Boczek conceded that most of the
original guards were likely dead, but
he suspects that their secrets have been
passed along to subsequent genera-
tions, who have been charged with
watching over the old homeland and
its buried treasures.
Boczek and Jurek told me that they
had been spying on a particular man,
a suspected guard, who walked the same
route through the woods every day at
the same time. "I find it very interesting,